The present invention relates to a construction kit comprising telescoping strut members and tedons, which may be either elastic or inelastic, permitting the easy construction of a wide variety of tensile integrity (or "tensegrity") structures of the type patented by R. B. Fuller, U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,521, and described, for example, in A. Pugh, An Introduction to Tensegrity (University of California Press 1976).
The type of structure which can be built from this invention was invented by Fuller in 1959, and various methods of construction have since been proposed by Pugh and others. To create rigid and correctly proportioned tensegrity structures the length of the tendons must be precisely related to the length of the struts. The ratio of tendon length to strut length is different for different structures, varying from approximately 0.51 to approximately 0.35. The methods heretofore in use all involve struts of a fixed length, and therefore all require an exacting and time-consuming process of precisely measuring the tendons and cutting them and typing knots at the length appropriate for each given structure. (Because many of the structures are complex and difficult to visualize, the builder has been encouraged to construct first a rough model, using rubber band tendons and a different type of strut, from which she can eventually fashion a more elegant version. See e.g. Pugh, supra, App. 1, pp. 69-76.).
The principal innovation introduced by my invention, the use telescoping struts, reverses the process. The struts being extendable to varying lengths, the length of the tendons can be fixed and pre-measured for all structures. Construction is thereby greatly simplified. The elements are fully reusable: a given structure can be disassembled and a new structure built from the same parts.